


Under My Skin

by Dialuci



Category: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!
Genre: Barbatos is here as well, Bodysharing, Crossover, M/M, Nothing too graphic or sexual so the rating is a T, Other, Venom AU, mentions of cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-23 11:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23710627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dialuci/pseuds/Dialuci
Summary: Past Lucifer was an absolute imbecile, Present Lucifer has decided.Because three months after being terminated by daddy dearest, Lucifer has not only had to downscale from a penthouse to a one-bedroom apartment, but he also remains woefully unemployed. And while he had managed to have--and continues to manage to have--a healthy savings account, not depleting it requires having self control… Which at one point, Lucifer had in spades.Hadbeing the operative word in that sentence, because Lucifer is now standing in the freezer aisle of the corner store closest to his apartment, staring at the ice cream section like a starving dog before a raw steak--which, actually,(mm...raw steak…)
Relationships: Diavolo/Lucifer (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 91





	Under My Skin

**Author's Note:**

> _"I can fit two people under my skin  
>  I can fit two people under my skin  
> And I will prove it if you will listen  
> You crawled up in there you joined me within_
> 
> _I can feel your heart beating under my skin  
>  And the beating of your heart is making me bleed from within  
> And if we cut open your heart, poured it in a cup  
> Do you think it'd be enough, do you think it'd be enough  
> To fill my heart with music?"_  
>  **"Under My Skin" by Jukebox The Ghost.**
> 
> I don't have an excuse for this fic. I thought about Venom for the first time in a year or two and this just happened... Knowledge of the venom franchise is not necessary but would probably help this monstrosity make sense. Lmao, anyway, enjoy!

“ _We only managed to salvage eight of them.” Lucifer’s father had never been a warm man--more of a distant let-the-nannies-care-for-the-horde-of-children-I-adopted-for-good-pr kind of parent--but there in his office, with Lucifer bruised and bandaged from his unfortunate fall into the glass of Asset Vo008’s temporary tank, he was truly glacial._

_“And of those eight, Lucifer, how many have we managed to get any sort of results from? Do you know?”_

_It was rhetorical, Lucifer knew the question was rhetorical, but too many memories of standing before his Father’s desk in his study and being reprimanded for not being able to keep a better handle on his siblings flash bright and painful in the forefront of Lucifer’s mind. His stomach twisted painfully, sweat beaded up on his forehead in a no doubt unbecoming way. Anxiety, Lucifer reasoned, although he hadn’t felt like this since his teenage years. There was nothing else to explain the way Lucifer’s pulse was picking up, making his heart run rabbit quick. He felt like a cornered animal, tense and hurting, sickness roiling in his gut._

**(fear fear fear hurts hurts hurts hurts hungry hungry HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY--)**

_“Tw--”_

_“Two.” Lucifer’s Father bulldozes on, the stern line of his mouth so tight and furious that Lucifer’s hands twitched at his sides and curled into fists, nails biting into his palms. “We had two viable specimens, Lucifer. And now thanks to your little fight with Michael, we have one.”_

_Lucifer swallowed hard. He hadn’t meant to pick a fight with Michael in the labs of all places. He rarely tried to interact with Michael outside of board meetings, period. He had gone down to the labs to personally demand some back due paperwork, and then Michael had been there, all high on his position as Head of Security, telling Lucifer he wasn’t cleared to enter the labs at the time._

_Of course that didn’t sit well with Lucifer, and he’d forced his way in--and maybe he hadn’t taken to being grabbed bodily by his ex-boyfriend well, and maybe he’d swung a fist at Michael for it, and maybe then Michael had_ **_pushed him into their tank…_ **

_“Father, I--”_

_Lucifer’s Father--or, rather, the CEO of Celestial Industries held up his hand in a command for his eldest son’s silence. “You’re fired, effective immediately. I expected so much more from you, Lucifer.”_

_Numb, he nodded. What else could he do? He parted his lips to take a shaking breath in, which must have looked enough like dissent to his Father because the next thing out of his mouth was instantly crushing._

_“And don’t even begin to think for a second that our family will support you after this. You’re cut off. Do you understand me? You will learn this lesson on your own.” The ‘And if you reach out to your siblings I will know’ implicit but unspoken._

At least it can’t get much worse _, Lucifer had thought to himself while packing up his office, hands shaking from the bitter queasiness pulsing in the pit of his stomach._

* * *

Past Lucifer was an absolute imbecile, Present Lucifer has decided. 

Because three months after being terminated by daddy dearest, Lucifer has not only had to downscale from a penthouse to a one-bedroom apartment, but he also remains woefully unemployed. And while he had managed to have--and continues to manage to have--a healthy savings account, not depleting it requires having self control… Which at one point, Lucifer had in spades. 

_Had_ being the operative word in that sentence, because Lucifer is now standing in the freezer aisle of the corner store closest to his apartment, staring at the ice cream section like a starving dog before a raw steak--which, actually, **_(mm...raw steak…)_ **

Lucifer shakes his head to dislodge the errant thought. He’s been having a lot of those since the nervous break he had after the whole being fired from the company he put his blood, sweat, and tears in since graduating from high school--he’d made it through a _master’s degree_ while working there, for fuck’s sake--and while a small part of him considered seeking help, the larger whole of Lucifer’s pride wouldn’t allow it.

How was he supposed to explain that after he was let go he suddenly developed an inexplicable urge to eat literally almost everything in sight? It was only by the grace of god that Lucifer had been able to keep himself from trying to take a bite out of his granite counter-tops that first night. Not to mention the raw eggs in the fridge, and the plastic that the previous night’s raw chicken breast came in.

Of course, that wasn’t taking into account the new intrusive thoughts and weird… dreams he’d been having.

“Sir?” The clerk at the counter is a prim looking young man with asymmetrical bangs and a pleasant mien which can only come from years and years of customer service. They have become… somewhat acquainted, in the past few weeks. “You look a little out of it today.” He continues, still so unbearably mild.

“I’m fine.” Lucifer fights down the furious flush that threatens to creep up his neck and onto his face, having been caught spacing out while staring down the various flavors of chocolate ice cream in the freezer.

He does _not_ want them. **(** **_We do_ ** **.)** He doesn’t even _like_ chocolate. **(** **_We_ ** **Do!)**

Desperately, Lucifer tries to look away. He’s managed to avoid buying anything that his unfortunate new impulses have been demanded so far-- but today is proving to be a significant struggle. He doesn’t need it. He doesn’t-- he has plenty of food at home-- _healthier_ options--

 **(** **_Disgusting options! We need--Stop being so stubborn! We_ ** **need** **_it!_ ** **)**

Lucifer’s eyes snap back to a pint of Death By Chocolate, and eerily--the way it does, sometimes now--Lucifer’s hand reaches out and opens the freezer door. Lucifer scowls at his traitorous limb and the cashier sighs, just barely audibly.

“Please take care with the door, sir.” He says wearily. Possibly because the last time Lucifer had got a bit too.. Enthusiastic with his inner debate on whether or not he should buy a bag of tater tots, and tore the freezer door straight off its hinges.

The bolts were rusted through--they must have been, because Lucifer certainly takes care of himself but is by no means _superhuman_ \--but he still offered to pay for the replacement out of embarrassment. 

Lucifer shoots the clerk, who’s name he really ought to know by now-- **(** **_Barbatos, actually.)_ **Barbatos, right. He shoots Barbatos a quick and dirty look over his shoulder. Before Lucifer can register it, four pints of ice cream and a package of fudgesicles have made their way into his basket. Lucifer stares at the items and sighs in resignation. 

He grabs a bag of potato chips on his way to the counter--he doesn’t even _like_ plain chips--and pointedly doesn’t look at Barbatos while he pays.

“See you later,” Barbatos’ smile is disconcerting and doesn’t reach his eyes, although they manage to also come across smug as all hell. “When you run out.”

Lucifer gives him a look and hoists his shopping bag higher up on his elbow. What a weirdo.

* * *

Lucifer wakes up in his living room at three in the morning, four empty pints of icecream on his coffee table, his hand in the bag of previously bought plain chips, and a fudgesicle in his mouth. He immediately chokes on a horrendous mouthful of potato and chocolate--he had gone to _bed_ , what is he _doing_ out here?--and does his best to spit out the offending food, but something _won’t let him._

Lucifer swallows with difficulty and stares at his hands, one with a fudgesicle sadly melting in its grasp, the other covered with crumbs and salt, and contemplates just how pathetic he’s become.

 **(** **_Not pathetic, Luci. Just Hungry… Why are you ignoring us?? Luciii)_ **

Lucifer levers himself to his feet and stalks over--all eight feet of distance--to his bathroom. Carefully, so as not to repeat the incident with the freezer door in the convenience store, Lucifer turns the tap on before vindictively washing the crumbs and the smears of melted chocolate off his hands. When he looks up, his eyes, iris, sclera and all, are a deep golden color rimmed with red around the edge, pulsing and _inhuman._

Lucifer doesn’t so much as flinch. 

“Stop it. You know I hate it when you do that.” 

Diavolo, formerly known as Asset Vo008, makes a sound in their shared headspace that was probably meant to be a whine, but comes out more like a high pitched growl. **_(But Luuuuucciiiiiiii)_ **

Lucifer glares at his reflection and pointedly goes back to washing his hands, meticulously lathering and rinsing and repeating. Apparently his pointed refusal to acknowledge Diavolo at all for the past two days hasn’t had enough of an impact on the symbiote.

**_(Luci… Are you still angry that we tried to eat that ‘dog’ the other night, because we think that--)_ **

“Of course I am!” Lucifer snaps at his hands, lips pursed. “It’s hard enough to keep you a secret normally, Diavolo! You can’t just manifest off of me and try to eat random jogger’s pets, even if they look--”

**_(Delicious, Luci! It was so--)_ **

“If you finish that sentence,” Lucifer glances back up into the mirror, where the entirety of Diavolo’s alien countenance is reflected back at him--pseudo horns and big stupid pouting eyes and everything. “I will go and eat a raw vegetable, right now, and follow it up with straight gin. Don’t test me.”

Diavolo grimaces--or at least, that’s the emotional sense that Lucifer gets from his ‘expression’--and tries at whining again. **_(We’re sorry! Alright? We regret trying to eat the ‘dog’.)_ **

Lucifer huffs, rolls his eyes. “You act like I don’t feed you at all.” 

**_(We haven’t gone Out recently, Luci…)_ ** Diavolo hedges, tentatively poking at Lucifer in their headspace, trying to gauge his receptiveness. **_(We’re_ ** **Hungry.** **_)_ **

Lucifer stares at his monstrous reflection and braces himself against the sink, blowing a chunk of hair out of his eyes. “I know.” It’s not as if he has many qualms with Diavolo’s particular _appetite_ , but being a conscientious judge, jury, and executioner sometimes takes a bit of work on his end.

He can feel Diavolo begin to creep out around his neck and arms, down his chest and ribs, over the planes of his stomach with a tender, intimate grip. Despite his disciplining his other, he has missed… this part of their relationship.

“...We could see about that child trafficker,” Lucifer concedes, and Diavolo pulses around him, flaring up and embracing him with nothing short of pure joy at being so obviously forgiven. 

**_(Luci!!! We’re really going out??)_ **

Lucifer hums and goes about the process of dressing himself in some nondescript street clothes while Diavolo cheers and rambles excited nonsense in the back of his head. He takes care to leave his phone on the counter near the door, and pockets his keys before heading out the door in a borderline good mood.

He has a dinner date to keep.

* * *

_Lucifer all but crawled through the front door of his penthouse apartment, having gone from nauseous and a little sweaty in his Father’s office to feeling violently ill the longer time passed. He had never once in his life felt so sick--even when he’d caught the chicken pox at the tender age of fourteen from one of his little brothers, it had not been so bad. His lucidity quickly fled him as he stumbled around his kitchen at first, trying to force himself to drink water, only to choke on it and spit it back out._

_His eyes turned on the counter--a hunger so sudden and violent over taking him that he barely had enough time to catch himself before his teeth made contact with the granite._ Not that, _the thought frantically to himself, wrenching open the fridge. The sight of the food was enough to send Lucifer to the sink--where he promptly got sick--and some desperate part of him screamed out in frustration._

 _He was just so_ _~~sick~~ _ **Hungry.**

_After fighting off the urge to go through the fridge and the trash both, Lucifer quite literally crawled his way into his bathroom. Alternately running hot and cold, lungs aching and stomach roiling, Lucifer was laid out on the cold tile. Everything hurt so much, burned, ached. It felt like he was being turned inside out, like all of his molecules were being re-arranged._

_From his pocket, his phone began to go off--the ringtone was some obnoxious pop song that Lucifer had specifically set for the second oldest--and he just barely was able to fumble it out. His thumb slipped over the receive and reject buttons, and he’d inadvertently answered the call._

_“Lucifer? Hey-- Dad just texted me not to talk to you?? What the fuck is that about--are you okay??” It was all Lucifer could do to simply breathe and listen to Mammon. He turned and pressed his cheek against the tile, panting harshly as another wave of nausea washed over him._

_“Hey--Lu? C’mon, you’re freaking me out. Are you good? I’m-- I’m coming over, I don’t give a shit what the old man said, okay? I love you, big bro, please be okay--”_

_Lucifer’s thoughts had drifted to Mammon, and for a brief and horrific moment, the word_ **delicious** _had curled around a memory of his brother._

 _“N--” He groaned, struggling to drag his phone closer. “N_ **_O. D_ ** **ON** _’T.”_

_“What the fuck was that??!” Mammon shrieked. Lucifer’s voice didn’t sound right to his ear, but he didn’t think it sounded so bad as to deserve that. “That’s not really convincing, y’know.”_

_Lucifer paused a moment to breathe and collect himself, then licked his lips. “I’m_ **_sick,_ ** _” He tried. “_ **_Don’t come over,_ ** _I want to be left_ **_alone._ ** _”_

_Mammon let out a hum of disagreement. “Seriously, Lucifer? Don’t be such a stubborn asshole--I’m not afraid of Dad, okay? Just let me help you for once in your life.”_

_Lucifer groaned--his cognizance slipping faster and faster away from him as the call wore on. “Bring_ **_food?_ ** _Just… Leave it_ **_for_ ** _me.”_

_Mammon sighed, relieved. “Yeah, sure thing.”_

* * *

Lucifer casually walks down an alley on the far side of town, taking bites now and again of a dark chocolate candy bar that they had compromised on buying. Diavolo purrs quietly in their shared mind at the flavor and the subsequent rush of his favored central nervous system stimulant. He crawls over their arms, threading their fingers together and then melding into an impressive imitation of black and red leather gloves. Hints of gold wink at him from the ‘seams’, which Lucifer snorts at.

 _(You’ve been practicing?)_ He can feel Diavolo trace up and down their spine, his version of preening as he fixes minute subluxations along his way. It’s… Endearing, although Lucifer won’t admit it openly.

**_(We’ve been watching YouTube Videos while you sleep! So we can be our clothes when we go out.)_ **

Diavolo follows that thought up with several mental images of Lucifer at different angles--naked, of course, and then clothed in **_them_ ** _,_ body tightly fitted in their own self while in the broad light of day so that Diavolo doesn’t have to consistently hide in the body and instead experience the earth’s delights without the complete filter of Lucifer’s senses.

He lovingly starts to detail how each stitch and seam ought to fit against Lucifer, how the “fabric” should cling or drape, which is all fine and good-- except Lucifer feels the distinct sensation of Diavolo sliding lower down his back, hugging his waist and then--

“Mnhf--” Lucifer swallows thickly around the chocolate in his mouth and bats at his side, slapping at Diavolo through their jacket and shirt both. _(ABSOLUTELY NOT! We’re in public!)_

 **_(But--)_ ** _(No! No Buts! If you keep this up I will turn us right back around--)_ **_(No!! No. We’re sorry Luci, we’ll be good, hm? We’ll be_ ** **so** **_good for our perfect host, we promise.)_ **

Lucifer highly doubts that, and Diavolo does his equivalent of raucous laughter in their mind. It makes Lucifer’s blood hum and his ribcage shudder--and it’s.. Not entirely unpleasant. 

He glances up at the apartment complex he’s stopped before, and mentally checks it against the photo he’d gotten his hands on in the early stages of their hunt.

“We’re here, anyway.” Lucifer mutters and finishes off the candy bar with a final, decisive bite. “Let’s ge **t changed, shall we?”**

* * *

**(Lucifer?)**

_Lucifer came back to consciousness with the feeling of someone gently caressing his hair and the sound of someone’s voice in his ear. They move in slow gentle strokes, seemingly unbothered by the fact that Lucifer knows it’s a mess of old sweat, grease, and product by now. The reality of that alone was enough to get Lucifer to crack an eye open, the threat of giving anyone a poor impression so great and terrible in his mind that even though he very much felt like death warmed over and then run over with a semi-truck, he had to try and smooth it over._

_“Sorry,” Was all Lucifer could choke out around his parched tongue and sore throat. What was he doing before this, eating sand? “My hair is…”_

**(Our hair is fine.** **_)_ ** _The voice said, low and gravely and amused._ **(You worry so much, Lucifer. But don’t you know? You’re already perfect to us--for us.)**

_Awareness slowly filtered in from there. First, he was lying on the kitchen floor now, and surrounded by… food wrappers? Second, he was dehydrated as all hell. Third…_

**(Lucifer? We know you can hear us. Why don’t you answer? Are you hurt? Our brain doesn’t** **_feel_ ** **damaged, but we’re very new to human bodies and they are very delicate compared to others we’ve had.)**

 _A barrage of emotions and vague images followed the words that, with a sudden and acute clarity, Lucifer realized was_ coming from inside his head.

_“What the fuck?” Lucifer gasped, sitting up and scrambling backwards until his back hit a cabinet. “Who’s there?”_

_Unbidden, memories of Celestial Industries’ labs came to Lucifer’s mind eye--the vantage point disorientingly low, the way he’s moving jerky and unnatural. In the memory, there are people speaking words he does not yet understand. He is poked and prodded, torn and burned in the volatile, inhospitable air. He goes through host after host--small things, little unstable herbivores unsuited to his kind, and then human beings, but they are sickly and dying and he eats through them faster than he would ever think to do normally, but he is desperate and he is_ ** _also_** **_dying_** _. And then--light and glass and bright hot pain from the oxygen--and then, warmth and safety and the_ ** _perfect_** _feeling of oneness, belonging, everything snaps into place and he has never_ ** _felt_** _such a connection to a host before--_

 _Lucifer gasped as he resurfaced from the torrent of memories, reaching up to touch his face with shaking,_ human _hands. “Oh God, am I losing it? Did I finally lose it?” He tilted his head back as far as it would go to look heavenward, but was met with only his apartment’s white painted ceiling._

**(We don’t taste anything particularly off-- well, apart from the fear. Lucifer-- you don’t need to be afraid of us. We’re--)**

_While the voice spoke, Lucifer gently cupped one ear and released, methodically checking to see if the sound would be muffled by the barrier. The fact that it wasn’t didn’t exactly inspire confidence._

**(Lucifer! Are you even listening to us??)** _The voice in his head was surprisingly deep and insistent, if not exasperated._ **(We are the being your people call Symbiote Asset Vo008.)**

_….Oh. Oh, dear God._

_“This can’t be real,” Lucifer breathed, holding his hand out before him and turning it over. He had known the company was running tests on the symbiotes, and he had known that they were largely resistant to the experiments--but he hadn’t known they were sentient. He hadn’t known they were running human trials, either. A cold chill ran through Lucifer at the sickening realization. “This…”_

_Before his very eyes something black and shiney welled up from his skin like magnetized blood being pulled up and out from a cut. The Material shifted as it curled around his palm, revealing veins of crimson and the tiniest threads of gold running through it. It gripped itself around his hand, threaded through his fingers._

(...Beautiful) _Lucifer thought to himself--or, he had tried to think to himself. The presence fluttered at the thought--rippling and twisting up into the air, swaying with what Lucifer could only assume was… delight._ **(You think we’re beautiful? Luci!! Can we call you Luci? You really think we’re beautiful??)**

_The Voice--the symbiote--Asset Vo008, seemed less like a volatile alien species in that moment and more like an excited co-ed. Lucifer twisted his hand so that it would catch the golden morning light against the symbiote’s ever-shifting skin._

_“You’re… Real.” Lucifer wondered at the sensation of the symbiote gliding over his skin--spreading out from his hand and up his arm, over his shoulder and around his back, up his neck and over his face. For some reason, this didn’t alarm Lucifer like it should have, and in the back of his mind he wonders if the creature is subduing his anxiety or if it's just that he’s reached that level of acceptance with things._ **(You’re just taking it very well!)** _The symbiote chimes in brightly, tendrils tenderly working their way over every inch of Lucifer’s body._

_He wonders if he is being eaten, distantly._

_The symbiote laughs--or Lucifer thinks it laughs, whatever it’s doing inside of him registers emotionally as laughing, anyway--as its eyes and mouth settle over his own._

**“We wouldn’t eat our perfect match, Luci. We are Diavolo-- and we are** **_so_ ** **happy to have found you.”**

**Author's Note:**

> A giant thanks to Kat (@luciferswerthersoriginals on tumblr) for enabling me. 
> 
> As always, you can find me over [@Canonlucidia](https://canonlucidia.tumblr.com/)


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